Every Chinese person learns poems by Li Bai, and the country's other favourite poet, Du Fu, from childhood., Li Bai raises glass to the moon Li Bai looks to the moon - and the bottom of a wine glass - for inspiration 'They are as important in Chinese literary history as Shakespeare is to people in Britain,' says historian Yuan Haiwang, author of “This Is China: The First 5,000 Years.” 'I remember when my son was only a baby held in my arms, I began to teach him some of the poems, like every other parent does, even though of course he couldn't remember all of them. Ĭarrie Gracie of the BBC wrote: “The language has changed so little that they remain easy for modern Chinese people to read, and their themes are still relevant today - from friendship, love and landscape to the stench of political corruption.

Two of the most important themes are “the complex balance of “Confucian” and “Neo.Daoist” personas that lay behind the Tang social ideal of the literatus, and the dramatic shift that resulted from the traumatic An Lushan Rebellion of 755, which crippled the confident cosmopolitan culture of the Early Tang and led to the increasingly rigid Confucianism of the Late Tang. Although poetry remained important to the ideal of the complete literatus in later dynasties, Tang poetry stands out in Chinese cultural history, and is often spoken of as China’s greatest contribution to world literature.” Unfortunately it is much adulterated by translation. Robert Eno of Indiana University wrote: “The high value placed on artistic accomplishment during the Tang transformed poetry into a cultural industry. If he failed he had to consume a glass of wine.ĭr. Chinese poetry reached its zenith in the Tang dynasty, when poets often sat beneath the moon and drank wine from cups floated on rivers and composed poems like: 'The sun beyond the mountain glows/ The Yellow River seaward flows/ But if you desire a grander sight/ The you must scale a greater height.' Poets sometimes played a game in which a cup was placed in a stream and a poet had to compose a poem before the cup floated by.

Five T'ang Poets by Wang Wei